Confusion between getLocationInWindow and getLocationOnScreen

Question

What I have understood is that getLocationOnScreen returns location with added height of status bar (or actionbar or title bar too ?) in Y axis from very top-left of screen corner.

And getLocationInWindow returns location from top-left of root content view of activity.

Now, everything seems to make sense. But when Im trying to get location using getLocationOnScreen and getLocationInWindow, they both return same location of a button with added height of status bar. For getLocationOnScreen it seems correct but for getLocationInWindow it seems wrong.

Is there something I'm missing ? or its just buggy ? I tested this in API-4 and API-14.

Possible duplicate of [getLocationOnScreen() vs getLocationInWindow()](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17672891/getlocationonscreen-vs-getlocationinwindow) — stkent, Jan 26 '16 at 02:15

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 29 '17 at 03:33

Even though this question has been answered before, I think it is still worth an effort to make this clearer.

If you look into the code of getLocationOnScreen and getLocationInWindow:

public void getLocationOnScreen(int[] outLocation) {
    // It calls the getLocationInWindow
    getLocationInWindow(outLocation);

    // and adjust accordingly in case the window is not the top-level window 
    final AttachInfo info = mAttachInfo;
    if (info != null) {
        outLocation[0] += info.mWindowLeft; // refer image below
        outLocation[1] += info.mWindowTop; // refer image below
    }
}

public void getLocationInWindow(int[] outLocation) {
    // do my calculation here 
    // by traversing views contained in this window (in a single tree of views) 
    ...
}

This is further explained in the image below, where blue indicates screen & red indicates window:

It is important to note that window can be your top-level window (covers the entire screen), or other custom windows such as dialog.

So, going back to your questions:

getLocationOnScreen returns location with added height of status bar

That's right. Your phone's screen includes the status bar's view

getLocationOnScreen and getLocationInWindow, they both return same location of a button with added height of status bar

That is because the window you are working with is the top level window that covers your entire phone's screen.

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:10

0

This question has already been asked here: getLocationOnScreen() vs getLocationInWindow() although the accepted answer is not correct, as stated by @groucho.

I could copy his answer but I think it is better if you check it there!

edited May 23 '17 at 12:10

Community

1
1

answered Jan 29 '14 at 10:58

Sergio R. Lumley

81
1
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Yes I'm aware of that, I did quite deep search before posting here. I had to use root view of activity then did some calculation. :) – xmen Jan 29 '14 at 12:07

Confusion between getLocationInWindow and getLocationOnScreen

2 Answers2